Arizona Culturekeppers

My Turn: Listening to our critics, you’d never know we invest $6 million each year in Arizona to help conserve species. The Arizona Game and Fish Department conserves and protects the state’s diverse wildlife and promotes safe, compatible outdoor recreation. That’s our mission and we have a long history of successfully managing all 800-plus wildlife species in Arizona.

Political special-interest groups that disagree with the Arizona Game and Fish Commission’s wildlife conservation mission are complaining because we don’t buy into their political agenda.

Our message to agenda-driven ideologues: Work with us.

Listening to the critics, you wouldn’t know that the Game and Fish Commission and the Department invest more than $6 million annually into projects benefiting threatened/endangered species and other non-hunted wildlife. That’s $6 million in on-the-ground conservation, improving the lives of Arizona’s wildlife. We’ll work with any group that will lend a hand.

Here are just a few success stories

Because we collaborated with a coalition of bald-eagle advocates, Arizona’s bald eagles are now plentiful enough to have been delisted from the federal Endangered Species list in 2007. Since delisting, the breeding population has increased by 30 percent, and the average annual fledgling count has gone from 21 in the 1990s to 55 since 2010. This year, a record 65 pairs of adult eagles produced 78 hatchlings.

Endangered Sonoran pronghorn were on the brink of disappearing from the U.S. by 2002, with only 21 remaining in southwest Arizona. Active management by Game and Fish and our partners has increased Arizona’s herd to more than 350 Sonoran pronghorn, and even more in Mexico.

In 1998, there were no Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico. Since then, Game and Fish has dedicated significant staff and financial resources to bring the wolf back while working to build social tolerance in local communities. By collaborating with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies, Arizona and New Mexico now host 97 known collared wolves and 18 packs, with 42 natural-born offspring last year alone.

We’ll work with anyone to save species. We also put substantial resources into recovering native fish species with proactive conservation efforts that can reverse the need to list them as endangered. Since 2006, we’ve conducted 300 native fish stockings at 130 sites, helping 18 native species and fostering 112 new native fish populations.

California condors, on the brink of extinction by the early 1980s, now number nearly 430, more than half of which live wild in Arizona, Utah, California and Mexico. Their comeback got an assist from Arizona hunters who voluntarily use non-lead ammo in condor country.

Many other species — desert bighorn sheep, black-footed ferrets, Apache trout, Gould’s turkeys, Chiricahua leopard frogs, and black-tailed prairie dogs to name a few — have benefited from collaborative on-the-ground conservation. We’ve achieved successes because we work with partners who roll up their sleeves and put boots on the ground.

The department will cooperate with any group that values and works toward on-the-ground conservation. We just have difficulty with organizations that focus their resources on rhetoric-laden fundraising letters, scare tactics and litigation. Conservation, like everything in life, only happens when you do the work.

Edward “Pat” Madden is the chairman of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. Email him at PMadden@azgfd.com.

Sometimes a good editorial cartoon says more than an entire column. A good example, by Jeff Stahler, appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on Aug. 27. A family listens to ghost stories by the campfire. Father assumes his scariest pose and says: “And then the decided to privatize the national parks.”

It’s a story that’s becoming reality in state and national parks and public lands. A complex multifaceted issue with strong proponents on each side. Good information including pros and cons is available online. I can’t begin to cover the entire subject but in 30-plus years of camping in state, National Park and Forest Service campgrounds we’ve seen the good the bad and the ugly of public vs. contracted private operation.

Fool Hollow State Park on the edge of Show Low is the gold standard for how a park should be run. We’ve averaged at least two visits per year over more than 25 years and always found it to be fastidiously clean and well maintained. Best of all we’ve never been bothered by loud music or rowdy behavior. In mid-summer our favorite high-country campgrounds, Winn, and Apache Trout at Big Lake, are run by the same private company under contract to the U.S. Forest Service.

A noteworthy difference between state-run Fool Hollow and contract-operated Winn and Big Lake is the much larger ratio of campers to camp hosts at Winn and Big Lake. Good for the contractor’s bottom line but what about the quality of camping experience. It depends on the camp hosts. Over many years camp hosts at Winn have been some of nicest people we’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. Friendly, helpful, courteous and conscientious.

At Big Lake it’s been a mixed bag. Camp hosts included one who came on like a marine drill sergeant. Another required a verbal kick in the fanny to enforce camp ground rules when children drove a go-cart up and down the road subjecting campers to nerve-racking noise and clouds of dust while the camp host did nothing. On another visit an overloaded trash bin stunk so badly that you could smell it half a mile away.

When camping experiences depend on the quality of hosts, we deserve better than luck of the draw whether in state, federal, or contract-operated facilities. Oversight is the key. On site-operators will be as good or as bad as the standards they are held to by campground owners, and that would be us. When they take the oath of office, our elected officials accept the awesome responsibility of managing our public lands for present and future generations. When they fail as stewards it’s because we’ve allowed them to.

As we celebrate the 100th birthday of our National Park Service we can be thankful for the foresight of private citizens and elected officials who created a network of protected public lands that’s the envy of the entire world. We must also accept responsibility for the $12 billion of deferred maintenance in our national parks, and many million more in our state parks. Can private contractors be part of the solution? With effective oversight maybe so; but they must be held to a higher standard than what we’ve experienced. It’s an election year. On the presidential level it may be little more than a name-calling contest, but many other state and national offices are up for grabs. If we want a well-maintained network of parks open and accessible to all now is the time to speak up.

William Thornton is a second-generation native Arizonan, conservationist and outdoor enthusiast. He serves on the boards of the Arizona Heritage Alliance and Friends of Ironwood Forest. Contact him at cactusworld@msn.com

Source: Arizona Game and Fish Department, September 1, 2016. The Governor’s Office is currently accepting applications for the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. Applications must be received or postmarked no later than 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Applications received or postmarked after the deadline will not be considered.

Governor Doug Ducey is seeking members who are well-informed and passionate about Arizona wildlife and its long-term conservation. In accordance with Arizona law, the Game and Fish Commission is required to be politically balanced and representative of all 15 counties (i.e., no more than three commissioners may be from the same political party, and no two commissioners may be residents of the same county).

Therefore, this Commission vacancy is NOT available to registered residents of Apache, Coconino, Pima, or Yuma counties. Residents of all other counties – Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pinal, Santa Cruz and Yavapai – are eligible and encouraged to apply.

For further information about the Arizona Game and Fish Commission and its mission, visit www.azgfd.gov/commission. Individuals also may contact the Governor’s Office of Boards and Commissions at (602) 542-2449.

Arizona State Parks announced formalized plans for Contact Point State Park on Monday, which is expected to be the first piece of the most significant development since the city’s founding.

The 198-acre park will feature a marina with a launch ramp, docks, dry boat storage, along with a restaurant with boat docking, a beach and ramadas. The park is anticipated to open in 2020. It will further provide the basis for the city’s Havasu 280 project and will lay adjacent to 250 acres of proposed residential housing.

“This is probably the most significant development to take place in Lake Havasu City possibly ever,” City Manager Charlie Cassens said. “Aside from Robert McCulloch’s original development of the city, this would be the most significant overall master plan.”

Contact Point State Park will be developed through a public-private partnership with Komick Enterprises of California, which also owns the adjacent property intended for residential use. According to a press release, Komick Enterprises was selected in July through the State of Arizona’s competitive bidding process to undertake the project. The developer is working in partnership with the locally based real estate firm Desert Land Group on the project.

“Contact Point is kind of the catalyst to the whole project. Now the city and private development will all be moving forward together,” said Mychal Gorden of Desert Land Group. “It’s really exciting and will be the catalyst to kick off a whole new amenity package for visitors and set up Havasu’s future on the south side.

According to a Desert Land Group press release, projects are scheduled to be developed in phases over the next 10 years, and the city will break ground later this summer on roadway improvements connecting State Route 95 to the projects. The city previously approved $450,000 for road improvements related to the development this fiscal year.

Executive Director of Arizona State Parks, Sue Black said the park will be “a game changer” for the area. She said the park’s additional boat slips are expected to ease boating related traffic congestion and extra amenities surrounding 10,000 feet of shoreline will make it a destination spot.

“It’s great to be working with Lake Havasu City, Arizona State Representative Sonny Borrelli and Jim Komick,” Black said. “Together, the vision of providing greater access and opportunity for the public to enjoy the beautiful environment at Contact Point State Park has become a reality.”

Gov. Doug Ducey also commented on the future Contact Point State Park, which is set to become the Arizona’s 33rd state park.

“Arizona’s state parks are known for their beauty and accessibility,” Gov. Doug Ducey said. “Contact Point State Park is another impressive piece of our state’s beautiful landscape that will be open for Arizonans and visitors to enjoy. It will provide even more amenities to Lake Havasu, driving more people to the region and creating economic prosperity. I’m excited this project is moving forward.”